I find it all too common for us to jump to conclusions about people or as they say, “judge a book by its cover”. What causes us to do this has always been something that I have tried to figure out. I was listening to Brent speak on Wednesday night as he was telling the story of when he first started to seek God, and to make the story short, Brent’s life was a mess. He knew that there was hope in Christ, and as he began to seek God, the Spirit began to speak to him more and more as God desired to move in Brent’s life. He told the story about how he became so hungry for God. He would read anything that he could get his hands on that would teach him more about God. So here he is; he’s got his yellow Mohawk, tattooes, and piercings, and he’s standing in line at a Christian bookstore. The woman behind the counter took in his appearance and allowed it to affect her attitude towards him. This woman’s reaction towards him caused him to get angry and stop seeking God. Her insensitivity stopped the work that God was doing in Brent’s life. As I was listening to Brent tell this story it so clearly reminded me of this idea that I had been wrestling with.

The fact that we come in contact with people everyday and draw premature conclusions about people without having any idea of what they may actually be going through. God needs us as believers to team with him in reaching out to the lost and hurting. We have more influence than we think to lead people either to or away from God. What would have happened if this lady in the bookstore would have been like Christ and been so excited that this guy was at least seeking God. She couldn’t see past the fact that he didn’t look like what she had made up in her mind that a Christian should look like. She had basically concluded that he didn’t belong in her “Christian” store reading her “Christian” books. Isn’t this exactly the kind of guy that you want purchasing your books that tell the good news of Jesus Christ?

Although I know that none of you would have treated this guy this way, it is a good illustration of how insensitive that we can be to what God is doing. It also is a good example of how we often times judge a person by a little bad experience that we have with them or because of the fact that they don’t “have it all together” like we supposedly do. About a year ago I was outside the church playing football with some of the junior high kids. A young girl drove by exiting the parking lot, and as she left, one of the other volunteers said to me “did you see her?”. I’ll be honest, I thought for a moment that he was talking about her attractiveness, so I responded “Yeah, she’s pretty good looking isn’t she”. He then says “No, she was smoking. How could you leave church and light up a cigarette before even getting out of the parking lot”? All I could think was, “how do you know what she is going through”. For all we know, this girl may have kicked heroin last night and decided to come to church this morning. She may have had her entire family die in a car crash just a week ago. Or she may have just been inside acting to her family as though she is the Christian among Christians and is secretly living a double life anytime she is outside the walls of the church. The point is: we don’t know what she is going through.

We expect people to have the same moral standards that we do. We see sin and think, “how could they do that” or we get frustrated that people could be “so stupid”. The thing is: sinners sin. That is what they do, and we expect them to do otherwise. They don’t need to get the sin out of their life, they need to get God in their life, and it is a message of love, hope, and restoration that is going to reach them.

I get the privilege to talk and pray with people almost everyday that are going through some of the hardest times in there life, people that seem to make stupid decision after stupid decision, and people that are at the point where they have just made the decision to give their life to Christ. Right here we have the choice to be judgmental or loving. To give them hope or condemnation. You have this opportunity more times than you probably realize. When you show love, compassion, and understanding to someone you go to school with or work with, you don’t know the impact that you may have on that persons’ life. So the next time that you run into someone and think, “what’s with them” or “they need to just pull it together”, or the next time that you are tempted to pass judgment on someone because they don’t measure up to your moral standards, or maybe the next time that someone randomly blows up at you and you are tempted to respond; make sure to be sensitive to the fact that you have no idea what that person is going through and you also have no idea what God may be doing in there life. One act of kindness and love could be all it takes for that person to give their heart completely to God. On the other hand, they could be one harsh word away from completely rejecting God. Matthew wrote of Jesus, “When He saw the crowds He had compassion on them because they were confused and like sheep without a shephard.” He then said to the disciples in 9:37 “The harvest is great but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send more workers into His fields.”